The Guardian Chapter 19: A Beautiful Lie, a pokémon fanfic

A Beautiful Lie

At times I almost dream of my souls, like a vision viewed from afar, screaming in prayer for the light of memory to dim… so that I too can walk hand-in-hand with olden age into oblivion, unconscious of the wrongfulness of our sinful society. And then the dream ends… and I find within me a prayer rising out of my abyss, praying for a better way, a brighter light… a second chance. Perchance I perished in the flames of my dissent once long forgotten, raving, love blotted out in shadows so vast that nothing remains beyond. But life is blotted out – not so completely. There was still a light. And dark. It may not be much, but it was mine. It may be wrecked, but it was scattered enough within for me to follow with the goal of my heart in sight… and path unknown… leading me to salvation.

Leading me back to love. In which lightness I might, by forgotten instincts and unfound will, last above the horrors as I search for my way back amongst the living.

Twin lines covered the floor. Twin lines that led from the door I'd just blown to hell and straight to the end, to the other side of the room, to the wall where Sabrina often could be found sitting on her throne-like chair, which stood on a slightly elevated podium of black marble, ruling the city.

Ruling her own little mad world.

Twin lines… of Pokémon, of men-like creatures without the wicked touch of true awareness, standing straight and at attention in two lines facing each other… standing like good, obedient soldiers, paving the way for me straight towards where this night would end.

Where the screams would stop. Start…

Fuck society. Fuck the world.

Where lives could be rescued and dreams could be quenched.

Where I'd die. Again.

At the end of the line lay Serena, her body unmoving, but I detected her life within. Unconscious but wholly there. In spirit. Soul swirling defiant within a mortal coil.

And I saw Riley, face serious, not looking like a man who had almost defeated the entire world singlehandedly, holding – with great strain, it seemed – the last person upon the precipice hostage within her mind.

On her knees, off to the side, almost behind the throne of great splendor, was May on her knees. Her almost inhumanly beautiful face void of even a single emotion.

I could see tears – old tears – upon her lovely face. A remnant of the fight for her mind that I'd been too late to prevent. A fight that she had, I reckon, fought and thought bravely, but ultimately lost.

You digging my grave yet, motherfucker?

This was it. The moment. A decision had to be made. Maybe that's all life ever was. A decision.

"Do you remember?" Riley asked; words alone seemed to be a great effort for him at this point. "Fuck… I think I might… over-extended myself this time. Too many Pokémon and now her…"

"Do go ahead and pass out, I won't complain," I said as I slowly, arms at the ready, approached them between the two lines of Pokémon.

He laughed. "That would please you, wouldn't it? It's strange how suddenly we find that your interests… and the world's interests… align so perfectly? Have I cured your mind's diseases tonight? Made you an honest member of society again?"

"Do I remember what?" I asked as I came to stand before the beautifully raised platform, his gaze looking into mine and mine looking into his.

"Ah, do you remember?" he asked again. "Do you remember? Do we? Do we even remember anymore? Or are we only dreaming at this point?"

"I often wonder how insane we must sound to the ears of the world," I said, sparring May a glance or two; why had he chosen her and not Serena? Obviously, looking at him, he couldn't have taken them both on, but knowing me as well as he did, he should have gone with Serena.

That's what I'd have done.

"Every mind in possession of a singular extraordinary thought," he said, "no matter how harmless, has always been ridiculed or harmed in some way by our society. Always. Men were once killed for saying out loud that the Earth was round. Consider that. Is this era really that different? Today we just… label these men out of their minds and ridicule them publically online or – if their voice is uncontainable, if their words are too great – we strip them of their rights, of their own free will – for their own good, of course. Today, to be such a man… a mad man… it is not a sin – it is the only true way to be alive. To be free of their shackles. To be unbound in life."

"I remember. I remember it all now. Life is a flat circle. Going around and round and… forevermore, man. Nothing matters. Nothing sticks. Nothing lasts… and everything lasts. It's eternity. Jerking us along for a ride. Pain replacing pain replacing the same fucking pain. Every fucking time! Whether we want to or not, it doesn't care. Nothing cares. Nobody… cares. Not really. I do remember. But oh god, sometimes I wish I was dreaming."

"And yet, knowing what you do, you'll still stop me. Knowing what it will cost you, knowing that your soul might not have the strength to bear the burden of your deeds. Are you truly that imbedded in their flawed sense of morality?"

"You remember why I did all of this?" I asked, masking the question burning in my heart. Why had he chosen May and not Serena? I had formed his answer in my mind, and it was so compelling, Lance, so fucking real to me, that I never wanted to hear his reasons. I just wanted to dream.

Just a dream.

"Revenge." Riley smiled this sad little smile, shared it with me, with a kindled, half-spent spirit.

"Yeah." I shrugged a little. "No. I did it to stop Giovanni. To stop a future in his image. To shape a world where Lance and men like him didn't have to cooperate with men like Giovanni… Everybody knew who Giovanni really was and everybody tolerated it because… the world needs to keep spinning the way it always does. The point is that back then, ultimately, I did it to better the system already in place. Not replace it. Not really. The point is, I've always been a part of this system. Wishing for a way to rise above it – at least for a time. Freedom is fleeting. But you cherish it the days you feel truly free."

"You fucking coward!" He snarled, then breathed slowly, composing himself quickly. To flicker-quick. Volatile. "I always find it funny how people speak of how much they want to see change, yet can't muster the courage to truly do anything about it. I always hoped – told myself I knew – that you'd be different. Ash, how do you expect things to get better if you cannot stomach change?"

"We all have what I'd like to call involuntary compulsions," I said, walking down the same little path of defiance I always did. "That whatever we do, whatever we're met with, we have something gene-deep, originating from deep within our brains, that allows us to respond according to… all of what we are. As I said, I've fought those compulsions, those habits of mine, to this day. But you walk on a path, which might be righteous, and braver than any path we others dare walk… but I cannot follow you on it. I stand against you. I stand against you and I stand against what this world is. I'm… truly… waiting between worlds… all alone…"

"Don't…"

"With the hope that we can find another way. Together. Find each other in the dark."

"Another…? Another way? Another way! Ash, there's no way back from this!"

"You could go back into hiding whilst we search-"

"Back into hiding? I didn't get this far just to go back into the miserable existence I had. There's no way back. No way back to where I was – and no way back to a better existence. There's only forward."

"Forward will lead to your death."

"Then at least I stood for the voice I had. At least I didn't settle for half-measures, half-lives… fuck them. Fuck them all. Fuck this world. Fuck you, Ash."

"You're right. I can see your vision, your world. But I lack the strength to see this through. You want me to beg, and I will; I can see that. It won't matter any and I will kill you in the end, killing every Pokémon terrorizing this city… killing May. All of that may happen – it probably will – but first I must ask you something."

"Go ahead," he said, perfectly calm, like we were only discussing my day over a spot of tea.

"There were rumors, back then. Rumors that truly set my will and put me in motion. Rumors that Giovanni was building an army; that he had found a way to engineer a superior breed of Pokémon using real Pokémon DNA. Were there any valid to those… whispered words?"

"You clung to those rumors like they were a fact of life back then, remember? A definite purpose of your life, a destiny to your rage."

"Were they true?"

"Of course they were." He laughed, mirthfully and full of life. Almost happy. "And he finally succeeded, good ol' Giovanni. And when he found what he'd yearn for, his creation… was his end. His purpose for this world was to plunge it further along in the abyss. I saw it… only once… We found each other in the dark, and it scared me beyond anything. It is not of this world."

"What is it? Why haven't I seen it?"

"I suspect it hides from you. For now. Gathering its strength. It was, after all, born last week. If you can call what it went through birth, that is. But don't question its birth, or its place in the world… it doesn't like that."

"It's a Pokémon and it speaks, then?" I asked, fascinated to the point that May almost left my mind. Almost.

"Truly, Ash, it doesn't even know what it is itself. But I reckon it follows this closely. I reckon it listens in on our conversation right now. I think it might see all of what's going on. Its gaze and ears touches… all."

"What's its name?"

"How should I know?"

"What does it go by?"

He smiled at me. Mockingly. "What does it matter? It will end… you."

"Tell me its fucking name!"

"You have nothing left to strong-arm me with, do you? Nothing left to give. Nothing left to become."

"I can make your last time on this side of existence a living hell."

"Pain is a cruel mistress," he said, "but one I'm well acquainted with. I know what pain can accomplish, and I've seen in you its limitations. There's nothing left for you to do but chose which path you wish to follow. Become free… or become a slave."

I hesitated, looked to May as if her dead face held within it an answer to my plight. Would she understand? Either choice. Would the world see my road, forking into two choices that of which no man could follow – and could they see and then understand?

There was no way back. But there was no way forward, either.

I don't want to die, Lance, but I don't want to be part of the world anymore, either.

"Do it," he whispered, reading my face. "Put an end to my suffering… Know, Ash, that what you're doing, you're doing as little more than their slave. Know that. Live that. Realize that, for all your might, all your authority…" he laughed. Fuck it, he laughed at me like I was an inferior being, and it was the worst sight of my life. "For all you are, you'd still give up your dream of a life worthy of the screams… for them. You'd kill one of the only things you love in this world… for them. Giving up your sanity… for them. You know they won't change – you cannot ask it of them. You have to force upon them your will, your vision. Fuck it, I'm talking to a slave now, aren't I? And he just does the only thing he knows how to do. Kill. So kill me. Seal your faith. Destroy your world. Kill your dream. Live the lie. Do it… Defeat me… and lose everything you ever stood for."

There was a second of an eternity, where screams are eaten by the dark nothingness, in which there was nothing but the silent of his word's end and the awaiting world. And then…

And then…

I shot him right in the heart with an arrow-like beam of purest light. It went straight through him. And as he fell to his knees, so too did the twin lines of Pokémon behind me.

And so, too, stopped the fighting. For a moment the entire world stopped fighting, I reckon. For a singular, extraordinary second of a moment, I'd gifted to the world an all-reaching peace.

Then innocent creatures awoke in their dying moments, awoke to the sight of men killing them… and men started killing again.

And the world was one big fuck-up of war again.

And as Riley fell to the floor, coughing and choking upon his own blood and vomit, so too did all of the Pokémon he had enslaved in Saffron City.

So too did May.

But where they all regained awareness, their sense of a self, realizing what they had done, what they had become, May did not.

"I…" His words died away as he choked and spat a handful of blood. Dying. In front of me. By my hand. "I won't let you talk with her. No… closure. Catharsis. You killed her, Ash." His raucous laughter split the air in half. "Killed her for nothing!"

"To stop you," I said, silently begging for my words to make sense to my ears. "To end this madness."

"You think they will applaud your sacrifice?" he asked, losing life but gaining a last measure of attitude. He intended to make use of it. "That they will welcome you as a hero? They won't even welcome you as a fellow human being. You're too great for them, too otherworldly. Too enlighten. Too free. Too different. There's nothing they abhorrer more. They will chain you – claiming it's for your own good. To study you… to own you. To own your power. And when you resist – as you will, as you must – they will outlaw you, and hunt you to the ends of the world. Because that's what they do. The system. Society. Men."

There were tears in my eyes. Because suddenly, his words, his dream – my dream… suddenly, as I looked at May, it mattered very little.

"I know why you choose May instead of Serena."

He blinked, and I realized that I for the first time since I'd met him back in the forest had managed to truly surprise him.

"You do." He nodded.

"Then you must know, a part of you must… I have to speak to her."

"Yes. I know. Which is why you won't."

"If you can see this, and still not allow us to talk one last time… then there're no words to describe what you've become. You were a parent."

"And it was the greatest mistake of my life."

"A lover."

"Hubris. All of it bolstering from a soul that should never have been yanked out of non-existence to begin with. All of it a search for a reason…"

"She can't die like this. Alone. In the dark. Let me find her… one last time."

"Plead for me, Ash Ketchum – the Last Guardian of Nothing."

"Please," I said, almost wailed. Disgraceful but beyond a shed of care. I was in love, after all. Just not with May. "You're right. About everything. But this one thing… this one thing that matters above everything else… oh god… you're not even close… Come on, Riley… please, let – no…"

Riley had died. Smiling. Knowing that my final words were a wept plead for merci. Knowing that I'd won but lost and that he had defeated me.

I spared him not a single glance, looking instead only towards May, as she lay there. And despite the irony of it, her face in death had become colorful and emotional again. Beautiful and, dare I say it…

Free.

Ah, fuck it…

She looked horrified. And, worst of all…

Betrayed.

May realized, standing on the edge between this existence and the next, between life and death, between moments stretched to infinity, that death was not that hard. Death was the easiest part of life. The forgiven part.

You just let go.

Life was hardest part. The part that was impossible to beat. To conquer.

She realized that Riley had chosen her, because he loved me. Because he knew that Serena would end me, whereas May would only cripple.

He chose May… to spare me. She realized that, as she died, aware of my betrayal.

Aware that the world – and me – had been cruel enough to string her along right until her messy end.

Aware that she'd spent her life the fool's way…

I scooped up May and Serena, one dead and one unconscious, and left behind Riley's body through the way I came in – through the roof. And without looking back, barely without a thought, I turned the building ablaze with nothing but my olden rage.

Burn in hell, old friend.

Then I set of to the skies, and soon I was joined by my Pokémon, battered but seemingly all there and kicking.

And I set off for you, Lance, where I knew people would be gathering, where I knew I could deliver May's body and it would be done right. Where I knew Serena could get help.

And you stood there, almost in the exact same spot on Garden's Alley, awaiting me, it seemed. And you were jubilant, of which I don't blame you, even as I passed onto the medics the two women of my life. Even as they sped off in a chopper. People around me off all kinds dared their hide to come up to me and congratulate me, to thank me for whatever I'd done.

Nobody saw my scars.

Nobody heard my screams.

Nobody felt my tears.

Everything was wrong but seemed right, and I could almost convince myself that it was gonna be okay.

I was gonna be okay.

And then John Clay shot me in the head.

The tragedy of humanity, of our destinies as beings laboring under the illusory assurance of a self, of a higher awareness, is not that our hearts can break, but the certainty that, given time, our hearts will mend.

Everything's… so damn mendable.

I don't want it to mend, man; I don't want anything to mend anymore. I don't want the pain to go away. I want to wallow in it, to exist, pathetically and purposelessly, within its embrace – to be swept away in its vile touch. To be reminded, forever, that I was alive… within someone else… and I killed it with my love.

That I still possessed the capacity for self-illusion.

Despite it all.

Despite all the lives I'd burned through, I was still as human as the rest of 'em.

But maybe I am the blessed in all of this. Maybe her death was my wake-up call. At last free of the shackles imposed within our minds. Maybe the world, as it burned in flames ever-lasting, spoke out to me in a plead for my ascension towards a higher kind…

A deeper understanding. A manner in which I could untangle, with my mind, the bounds of existence within our pathetic molecule of a cosmos.

Death equals all, you see. Death has an innate ability to will out the truth… of your meager, un-lived life. Of your fuckin' lie.

I've seen the end of more lives than live upon this blackness. This vile, ever lumbering fuckin' stone! Taken worlds – as great and true as this – into true oblivion in a flash of a dying sun… And every one of them, of those that inhabited such a world – without fail – claimed to be the one, to be in control, to understand… that they were more than just the sums of their flesh and their illusory compulsions.

Every one of them was caught in the treacherousness of life. In the idea that they had… man, they fucking had to become something. Someone.

Why is it so fucking important to be someone? To become. To be validated? To get pussy. To get fucked. To work. To gain glory. To have children. To live… Just die already. Just fucking die, man. It's the same goddamn thing. Blunders of souls that long since evolved beyond their intended value, intended sense of entitlement.

And that's the real killer.

Entitlement.

Everybody is so fucking self-entitled.

I have the rights. Me. First. I. Fucking me, man. I deserve it. Not them, me. There's only I.

Fuck it all. Fuck you, world.

There's no entitlement. Nobody deserves anything, save a swift, painless death. And even that right should be reserved only for the truly worthy.

Man. Shit.

You know… fuck…

I feel like I can't do anything anymore. Just dwell on memory. And memory is heavy these days. Vast and unbearable. Nauseous. It cannot be a natural thing. Thoughts alone can invoke in me a regret so colossal that the days end before the sun sets and the blood rises from my throat, gagging me slow and steady, swift and merciless… torturing me. Thoughts of an almost alienist magnitude plague me. Hostile thoughts. Killing thoughts.

And its all so goddamn much I almost forget about her.

And there were other worlds. Other choices. Out there. For me to shape in my image. Worlds in which I could exist in my trickery of an existence, to have illusory purpose and stupid will of life.

Lance, I regret to say… there's not much hope I can give today. Not much for you to use left of me inside this vessel of a deity.

We were waiting between worlds. All of us. Choices pressed down upon us, upon me, forking in the road ahead. I stood with the gun, the choice, the final say in the matter. And I had a thought, strong and beautiful; that I hoped could last and hold.

And I've forsaken it. Killed it. Drowned it in the flames and blood of my defiance.

Now there's only the lie left. There's only this life. This world. And I'm stuck in it. Aware of its wrongness, of what I killed, of futures unfound… yet unable to find a way back amongst the living.

I killed May. The dream. The Dream. And, man, I killed… a pungent chunk of me.

World, I regret to say… there's not much hope I can give today. For…

I am of madness unbound.

And only the mad and the lost can see sense in the senseless, after all. But in a mad world… maybe madness is the one great equalizer, the bearer of true sight.

Maybe only the mad can see truth. Maybe only the lost can find solace in the isolation of our hearts.

And maybe I am blessed, for maybe I am the mad man – maybe Riley was sane. Seeing the world for what it truly was… but unable to wonder what it might become.

Maybe, crazily, it's the dreamer that's insane.

Maybe my sins have proven righteous and I can walk clear of guilt into the coming of the end.

But I know that's just the bolstering of a soul… not yet ready to give in. I know it's all just part of the lie trying to reign in control of me.

And I feel myself slip into its soothing, dulling touch. Slowly. Unnoticeably.

You see, there was moment, streets in blood and souls on fire, right as the bullet of John Clay splashed and rebounded off my head like a fly against a windscreen, wherein our eyes met and I could perceive John Clay with true sight.

See him as men ought to see one another.

And I saw, not like a movie, more of a… sense… I saw what had befallen good old John. I saw the infernal path he'd trodden through, what gloriousness I'd bestowed upon him in my hunger for vengeance, in my search for justice…

In my reach for a life worthy of the storm… in my fucking quarrels for worlds… He burned – like thousands others, I suppose – for my mistakes and defiance.

And though I, of course, survived his attempts on my life, I think he deserved to take my life… for what I caused.

What I leave behind.

How can I go on, I wonder, knowing what I know? What does that tell you?

Am I swept in glorious self-sacrifice and bravery?

Or am I just a man… caught in my own self-deluding madness? Just a soul that exist only for that… to exist… to persevere no matter how futile and meaningless it is?

I killed a girl I loved. Barely hesitated. And I wonder if that makes me brave or mad…

Anyway. I saw…

I saw what had befallen John Clay…

There was an explosion of sound, and he felt like something was breaking inside his ears. A second and an eternity later, the earth above them broke apart and revealed a nightmare, as a vast creature of ice fell through a hole in the Earth.

Then the man started shooting.

The crazed man missed. His gunshot, almost as if time slowed, passed by his face by less than an inch.

Then the monster crashed down upon the man and his Pichu, burrowing them, hopefully – and he had never thought such a vile thought so sincerely in his life before – killing them beneath its weight.

John Clay stood rooted to the spot as bullets ricocheted off the cavernous walls of the metro station, flying around them like angry bees. He stood rooted in a spot upon which one could gaze in awe at one of the true splendors of the world.

Articuno.

It shrieked like mad, though John wondered if it was more pain than lunacy at this point, and struggled against the small space in which it now existed.

It was a slow struggle, a grind. But for John and his two boys, its struggle could prove dangerous.

It could prove fatal.

Rocks and debris started raining down from the walls, as the desperate beast fought for its freedom. John, puzzled, could almost taste the desperation; as if the beast knew something they did not.

As if the beast knew something more dangerous was flourishing above them, coming to lay down at last the beast of ice.

John Clay, desperate for inspiration, scooped up the gun off the crushed, lifeless form of the man with the Pichu and rushed his kids in behind the being's flaring wings. That, he quickly realized, was a mistake. There was a kind of rocky alcove protruding out of the wall, protecting them from harm, but there was no way forward from where they stood, and even the thick, rocky form would not last against the desperation.

And then Articuno finally gained its legs, John saw with growing dread, and there were no way back now, either.

For a moment he stood with the gun in hand, wondering. Wondering. Was it any good against such a creature? No, he reasoned, and shoved it back into his pants, hands on his kids and at the ready.

Ready for the chaos to descend.

Articuno, suddenly still and soundless, looked with an oddly calculative gaze upon the hole from which it arrived moments ago. Was it contemplating whether or not it might fit through?

John got his answer as he beheld the giant thing jump for its freedom. It strength shocked the earth into quavering movements, of which plucked aware their footing.

The floor tilted downwards towards the center and gravity started to pull them down. John was the only one who caught himself before he slipped completely, latching onto a rock protruding out of the floor with both his feet. Acting quickly, somehow he managed to grasp both children in each arm with his one free hand.

But he lacked the foundation to use his strength and pull back both boys and slowly their combined weight pulled him towards the center, beneath the flaying Articuno that was now stuck in the pathway to Earth.

The grounds trembled and something moaned deeply, the sort of sound you heard with your bones rather than your ears, and he knew there was only seconds… Beside him, he saw, there was a spear-like black stone, which almost lost its appearance to the darkness, and it bulged out at him, waving, daring him to reach, to pull them to safety… and he realized…

Oh. Oh god.

He looked back to his sons, of faces of equal terror, and realized with a fetid streak of sickness that he couldn't save them both, for he had a vision. A foresight. That, way up in the sky, a man was preparing to unleash his ravings upon the grounds below, against the being right atop them… and that being would fall…

And John saw… he saw, man – saw that I would smite Articuno into the grounds, and he knew that they had to be gone. Fast.

Imagine that. Imagine that you have to look upon two boys, your own flesh, and choose one. And imagine the last seconds for the boy that wasn't chosen. Those last seconds before the Articuno falls on you and an ocean of blue flames engulfs you. Imagine the thoughts that such a boy would meet his end with.

There can be no crueler fate.

The last thing that child would see… was his father running off with your brother, saving him.

Can you save them?

Can you save us?

Don't leave him, man! I will…

I will kill him…

But John Clay was already running, man. Somehow, in a moment between breaths, between seconds, between thoughts, he had made the impossible choice.

He ran as I rained down fire from above, as I killed Articuno and his child, his youngest son, the least loved, and he ran as the ocean of flames licked at his boots, scorching his skin and the skin of his child's arms, the most loved, the eldest, as they clutched around the waist of his father.

And I, unbeknownst to all of this, moved on to other preys. And John Clay lumbered onwards, alive but dead inside, with the loved child that now suddenly mattered very little against what he'd just done.

He could hear the screams of his own deceit within the stillness of his own madness now; he could perceive it. Touch it. Be touched by it.

And we found each other. In the dark. In the darkness of our minds. And he was already long gone. Already beyond the point… unable to persevere. Unable to accept the lie of living. There was only one escape. Created by eternity to amuse itself long ago in a room aside existence. He realized the wrongness of this world, how only in an existence this truly shitty could one tolerate all the cruelties that are visited by the inhabitants of this small, inconsequential pixel of the cosmos. How fervent our hatred of each other is, how… pathetically depraved we truly are. How easily corrupted we are to the deepest desires of the darkest corners of our hearts.

And how obvious our fear is… our desperation… how clear it was that we were not meant to be this, how far beyond the natural order of things we had evolved.

And sometime later, mind caught in death, in escape, after trekking his way through the bowels of Saffron City, he found his way through the rectum of the world, and was revealed to the eyes of men as little more than the shit upon which no man care to think.

And by a stroke of some deity's uncaring genius, he found himself face-to-face with Garden's Alley, whereupon he could behold me as I descended the sky with May and Serena in my arms, one dead and one asleep – though none of that mattered to John.

Nothing mattered.

He gave his son, who had fallen into the clutches of sleep, too, to a faceless man with an authoritarian uniform, spoke no words – as if the boy was some kid he'd found lying on the street. He knew that this was the last he'd ever see of his son. The only thing left in his reality with any kind of pull towards life.

He didn't deserve him.

He had to get away from him, lest clarity would leave him again.

And in moments, with true strength in his heart, John Clay would be free of this world, too, free of its vile constraints and of the killing thoughts running abound in his fucking head.

In a moment he'd be free of this world.

It didn't deserve him.

Already a plan was forming in his mind, as he looked upon the Elite Forces that had surrounded Lance and I. And to him, holding the gun he had scooped from the mad man below, it mattered very little if I died or not, though it would be preferable, for he knew that we had all just gone through hell and everybody would have their fingers on the trigger still.

His plan was anything but bulletproof, as it was intended.

He approached me, beneath the eyes of the world that perceived our reality televised through their screens from the helicopter above us. And he raised his gun, walking slow yet fast, and no one noticed him. No one cared for his screams, for his scars, for him.

Nobody cares. Not truly.

He was just a man, after all. Only meant to be used and discarded.

He wasn't a good shot, he guessed. He had never tried. So he walked close out of necessity. He came to stand five meters from me, gun raised, amongst a platoon of Elite Forces… beneath the army of square eyes from another world somewhere upon this Earth.

And he shot. And his sight was true. And the bullet struck, crumpled, and bounced off my skull. And a soldier, standing before me and with clear sight of what had happened, saw only a mad man that had attacked the hero.

And he turned, raised his gun, and shot without thought of what he was doing – such was his training, after all – and killed John Clay almost habitually. As if his life mattered nothing.

It all happened in a manner of two seconds, but it was enough… I glimpsed a man welcoming death, a soul acknowledging its futility, its emptiness, and, with utter dignity, took action based upon this indisputable fact.

I saw… man, I saw… I saw as if time stilled… Our eyes, John Clay and I, we met in the dark… the darkness of our minds. And I… And I saw, man… I saw everything of him. And he saw everything of me. And we shared our pains, and we became one becoming two…

And he screamed at me from his lonesome room. He screamed from aside existence, within the dulling embrace of eternity… from betwixt death and lies, between… moments… and his voice echoed across the great, secret emptiness of all life.

The Truth! He yelled in his mind. Through the world. How can you stand it?

The Truth! How can you stand it?

His words resonated and stretched on for miles on end. And I saw John Clay kill himself by the bullet of another man.

In the end the system always gets the last word, doesn't it? I mean, I find myself horrified at times what a man must do simply to eat, or have a bed, or clothes on his back…

I wonder if perhaps it's just me something's wrong with. Nobody else seems to care.

Or understand.

You have to keep choosing between lesser evils. Between things you'd least hate doing. And no matter what you choose, they will slice you up, bit by bit, chew you thoroughly and leave a shade of your former glory behind.

At my age most people are finished becoming something for themselves, finished with dreaming… simply existing for someone else. Working for someone else. Screwing for someone else.

I never possessed an ounce of interest for that existence. For much of anything of the sort, really. I wanted to escape it. And for a time… I did. A few years there, ten minutes here… moments where I was free.

I reckon if people stopped to think they'd realize how precious few, and how precious short, those real moments truly are.

I wanted to escape for good yet still be a part somehow – and I thought becoming a Journeyman could… split the difference. I guess. I could be out and wild, whilst still be a part of humanity.

But even that is conforming to the powers at play. Not true escape.

Truth is… I had no idea how I was going to escape. Still don't.

And, jealously, I behold how other people navigate through the unbearable restraints placed upon us as if they barely notice them. They have a… a taste for life that I never found. As if they understood the little nuances between the cracks.

Maybe I'm simply lacking something. Maybe I'm just inferior. Lacking. I've often felt that way throughout my lives.

Always. Always that instinct of escape screamed in me. At me. I just want to go away, into a room where I can dream in peace. Dreams in which no women screams from within the fires of a hell on earth.

Dreams in which I don't have to be the slayer of innocence.

But there is no escape. There is no place for me to go.

John Clay deserved to take my life. I saw – in his eyes – his memories of the last ten hours, and off everything before. I saw what I'd cost him.

From his point of view, I'd cost him everything. Most of his family, but – more importantly – I'd stripped him of his humanity. That choice between boys… that choice slayed him. He simply couldn't go on past that.

The only thing that'd make sense for him, the only thing left for him to do, was kill me. And as that bullet bounced off my skull, I watched his soul fall apart, welcoming death as a familiar lover.

It was a man of the system, protecting the system, that killed John Clay. An anonymous, antonymous slave. But, man, the system killed John Clay long ago.

It kills everything of worth.

"Notice how every little eccentricities you might possess is frown upon," I said, more to myself than Lance, who were listening attentively nonetheless. Talking to myself had just become easier these days, yet I strive to make an effort. Sometimes.

Today, though, today I just unloaded my misery.

Weeks had passed since May died. Since John Clay and his family died. Since they died by my hand.

Since I'd forsaken the world Riley and I envisioned.

"Yet," I continued, "to make an effort to blend in, to not be looked upon as strange in the eyes of the world, we make ourselves kill those parts of us – so we can walk just as colorlessly on the streets as everybody else. So nobody can ridicule us, isolate us… imprison us – yet we don't see that they have already accomplished all of what they wanted. They have taken that of which was you, blurred it to nothing, and integrated you into the wheels of society as little more than spiritless cattle."

"I'm sorry, Ash. For everything." Lance looked at me. Really looked. And I looked back, almost seeing his sorrow round the edges of his eyes. It was almost there, heartfelt and true.

But not quite.

"Nobody should be able to go through what you have endured. The choices you had to make… I find myself puzzled how you still stand."

"How does one last… above the horrors? How does one cling onto a will of life in this tidal wave of grief thrust upon us? Are we alive… or are we all just dreaming inside a locked room? A fabricated lie to hold at bay the madness at the border…"

Lance shock his head at someone behind me, someone outside the sphere of the padded cell in which I was being questioned. I could barely sense the person… but nothing much beyond that.

Walls impenetrable were closing in.

"You say… you talked about a crimson king?" Lance tried, words slow and measured. "Is it you or something else?"

I laughed. "A Crimson King – with capitol letters, man. Is it me or is it the creature roaming our streets by moonlight? Can't it be both?" I paused. "No. It can't. It won't allow my continuation; I've already exceeded that which I was meant to be… this time. We will battle for the throne…"

"Ash… you sound strange… incomprehensible."

"Spoken like a true man of the system, Lance. All of that which we do not understand we must at once dismiss as enigmatic and queer, lest their weirdness should tether to our thoughts."

"I'm… there's no reason to bite, my friend. I'm just here to listen."

Something about his face, its countenance, spoke to the silent rage of my heart. It scratched my itch.

"Do not speak to me as if you're speaking to a common thug you can so easily manipulate. I see through that now. I see it all now. Your heartbeat just quickened by 7.2 beats per minute, and it was already sky-high. Sudoriferous glands activity level is almost alarming for a man of your well-known level-headedness. Sudoriferous is the Latin word for sweat by the way. And don't even get me started with your eye patterning… so much panicky motion…

"Yea. I'm like that now. A year ago I wouldn't have comprehended half the shit that's coming outta my mouth these days. Oh, those were the days… blissful in my ignorance I trod the far-reaching lands of our beautiful Earth. Now I'm just an old man in a young man's body… disillusioned by what he has discovered behind the unraveled veil. I'm barely halfway spent with my twenties and I'm already truly satiated to the point of bloating with life."

"Disillusioned by the lie of life, right?" Lance said, and I didn't like the sarcastic nature of his voice. "That we're all spinning our wheels, that life stretches into eternity, and we are all just destined to be the same. Again and again…"

"You don't believe me, do you?" I said, almost smirking. "None of what I've said."

"I believe that you believe."

"That's a deflection, Lance. And not a very good one."

"The press is looking for answers. I thought you might have some, but I doubt I can convince them of what you've told me."

"I didn't come here to speak to the world; I came here for you… for you to understand. So that we may have a chance to stand together at last. For something else is rising. Something a helluva lot bigger than Riley. The Crimson King."

"I agree. But I need you to speak to the press. And I need you to come up with a better story than this shit you've been feeding me these last couple of hours. Scale it down a few notches. Make it… tolerable."

"The truth is seldom tolerable."

Silence settled into the heart of our conversation. The gleam on the edges of his eyes, their nature, came to me like a revelation.

I smiled. Fuck you, world.

"Fuck you, Lance. Fuck your species."

"My species?"

"Fuck your world."

"You mean our species. Right, Ash?"

"Fuck your clandestine schemes and your ill will. You don't care, do you? You're not even sure if to believe; you're only sure that you don't care enough to try."

"It doesn't matter, though. Does it? Nobody is gonna believe that you're a thousand-something year old man, who has journeyed across time and space again and again. Nobody's gonna believe that that's what we're all destined for. That that's what our lives are. That we are nothing but a tiny speck in a time that exist within multiple times that exist within something beyond our capability to fathom."

He was right. And it had never been the point to convince the world. I didn't want the world to see me, remember, because I knew they wouldn't understand. But I was done being a puppet to another man's will.

"What did you have in mind, then? What was your plan?" I asked.

"Speak to them, the press. Convince them that you're cooperating with the authorities and that you will be working under me now. You don't have to give them something specific – in their eyes you're a hero. And for now that's enough goodwill, that will give us some time to come up with a suitable explanation that people can stomach."

"So basically you want me to lie for you."

"Well, yeah. The world is woven in them. It's our pact with society. We feed them the lies and they print them, read them… live them. You said you wanted to work for me. This is part of-"

"No, Lance. I never said I wanted to work for you. With you, yes, but I work for no one. Last man I tried to become something for ended up burning an entire city down."

"I'm afraid, Ash, that you have no say in the matter."

Silence. Excuse me?

"Excuse me?"

"We have you, as they say, dead to rights."

"I…" Thoughts like data ran wild within me, within the system of the Suit that I'd been integrated into. It caught on slow, and I didn't at all. "I don't understand."

"You have been through so much. Seen what can never be unseen. Done what can never be undone."

"Get to the fucking point."

"Nobody could blame you if you, somewhere along the way, cracked."

"Cracked? I don't crack."

"Even the strongest roots can be torn apart. Everybody has a breaking point. Even you."

"No. I don't. I really fucking don't. We both know it. Me being unbreakable is the only reason any of us are still sitting here."

"You are right. But they don't know. And of that they can't be convinced."

"So what? You'd have me declared insane? Is that it?"

"You say that like you don't know what that would mean for you. I will strip you of your rights, Ash Ketchum, the Guardian. I will breathe your identity to the ears of the world. And they will listen. I have almost your every deed on film. I have recorded our conversation. I have recorded your conversation with Drew. I will reveal you to the eyes of the world. And they will see you. In the end I barely have to plant the idea of your madness in their minds, because they will reach that conclusion easily by themselves."

"Then I'll just have to kill you."

"Do that and you'll have sealed your fate. One does not simply kill the Champion of Kanto."

"Maybe I just don't care."

Lance sighed. "You care more than the rest of the world put together. You care so much that you were willing to sacrifice your soul, your love, your life and your girl to make the goddamn difference. You care so much and you don't even know why anymore. You are a fascinating man, Ash. Nothing can kill you, barely anything can do you harm, and yet you're the most vulnerable man I've ever seen. Because you truly care. We don't care. None of us. Not really. We say we do to each other to pretend at decency but it's all just for show. No cause is worthy of our time unless the cause can serve as our own. You're the last truly selfless man. And the world will break you, and maybe the world will in turn break upon you. But you only have the choice left. Play along or get hunted down by the people you've just saved."

"Why is this so important to you? What do you gain from this?"

"Simple, really. A lesser man than you would have seen it, because he would be thinking about it, too. Next year is election year. The polls are not in my favor, and I believe your status, your very symbol, could be that favorable light shinning upon me. Changing the waves in my corner. Or, if necessary, I could be the man that exposed your lies, that you were just a mad man that was in some way a part of this insanity… this… land of psychosis. And I was the one… the one that stopped you. Revealed you. I will be the true hero."

"And people will eat it up," I whispered, caught in limbo, horrified and – somehow, impossibly – at peace. "Because…"

"Because we make an effort to blend in. We have done so most of our lives. Habitually we fold to the sound and will of each other. Oppressed and afraid to speak up about what resides within for fear that we might stand out, that we might be excluded. That we may be isolated completely. Society demands that we kill our individuality in favor of its supreme will. So when we see a rebellious soul, screaming from the other side how wrong we all are to follow blindly…"

"They will kill him, his will, with their indifference. They will hunt me."

"Only a soul as naïve as you could be this surprised."

"No, you don't understand. They won't even hesitate."

"That's society. A concept dressed up in cultivated virtues, but really, we're all just rabid dogs, eating each other whenever we can within the constructs of our rules and laws. And – if we can get away with it – we outside them, as well."

I stood, allowing the Suit to cover my body in its embrace, knowing that this was at last the end of the tale, that there was nothing here for me to do anymore, that Lance had made a decision.

"This is the last time, Lance." I said, and my voice was calm. Perfectly so. Dangerously so. "I won't offer my hand in partnership again."

"I don't have partners. I have subordinates, who must obey my word, and I have superiors, whose words I must obey. As everyone else on this planet…"

And Giovanni had been one such superior, right, Lance? I thought, but didn't say. There was nothing left to say.

I turned and headed for the door, knowing that Lance wouldn't dare laying a finger on me, and knowing that Lance knew I wouldn't lay a finger on him.

We had come to an impasse of wills.

"I will speak to the press in an hour," he said to my back. His voice wasn't gloating, but there was no sorrow either. "You have one final hour left as a free man. After that we will hunt you. Everybody will. Every region will join us. There will be no peace for you. Anywhere."

I gave him a look over my shoulder, my helmet snapping in place as I did, and he shuddered in the face of my opaque, crimson visor.

"I can take it." I smirked. "Fuck it, give it your best shot."

Then I tore the door off its hinges with one hand, without a shadow of effort, and threw it at Lance. He reacted quick and fell to the floor, letting the door sail above and beyond him.

"Oops," I said, fake tone of apology in my voice. "Sometimes I don't know my own strength."

Curiously, I beheld the figure I'd sensed before but couldn't quite see through the wall of the padded cell.

And there she was.

Sabrina. The bitch.

"Even knowing what Lance now knows, he still let you into his fold."

Sabrina smiled, favored me a secret little smile, and shrugged one delicate shoulder. "I can be very persuasive."

"Hmm." I sighed. "Go figure. I never found your blowjobs anything special. To each his own, I guess."

I left them behind, walked through the hallways, using my powers to navigate myself outside the scope of any human being to avoid any unfortunate contact with the press. And five minutes later, there was air beneath my feet, as I was sandwiched somewhere between the blue sky and the gorgeously wild forest life beneath.

Wild forest life of which brimmed with life and vigor. And it stretched for miles upon miles, farer and wider than my eyes could see. And I felt my hatred of Lance, of human kind, of life itself, leave me in favor of something just a tad more meaningful.

I knew I didn't have time to find Serena, to tell her everything was gonna be all right, to lie to her and to love her… the way she deserved.

We will meet again. I thought and believed and hoped and saw.

Clement had his orders. Hopefully he wouldn't rebel me. If he followed them we would be united somewhere in secret amongst the rebuilding city of Saffron City. Because I'd already seen this, despite what Lance thought.

Riley had, after all, warned me.

We, Clement and I, would wait, in silence, for things to go bad again.

We would wait for the king to rise.

We would await the coming of the Crimson King.

I screamed. I screamed and raved and hated and cried, pouring everything within out… and in the embrace of the forest, I found some semblance of forgiveness for myself.

I had one of those moments where life seemed almost worth it.

And as I ran from the world… with a mind full of wonders and hatreds… I screamed against the truth, for something better than its ugly nature.

There came about a sense of something honest within me – that we're all bound by the purpose in which we invest ourselves.

And I invested in sacrifice.

Disgraceful. Vengeful. Angry. Holy. Honor. Love. Hate. It's all the same thing, man. All just sacrifices… You see? You get it? You diggin' my grave yet?

Are y'all crucifying me upon the fires of men's sin?

You see?

You fuckin' see, man?

We're all animals in an indifferent cosmos of lights and screams, made up purely of purposelessness and acid memory. And we fill these moments, our lifespan, our great, naked dream… we fill with the ravings of souls reaching for a purpose beyond merely the continuation of a meaningless existence.

And we look upon ourselves, speaks to ourselves in a locked room that only you can hear – for we cannot hear each other, not really, not in the sense that matters above all else. And we speak with an illusory thought, with a certainty of our realness. Because the truth hurts. Acknowledgement is a killer of souls, and it will stand in the way…

Can I change this?

Do I still possess the will to stand up against the screams of despair? Can I ignore the indifferent looks of the bystanders that, deep down, really don't care unless Hell screams right above them? Can I leave behind the known path, the map of life, and not crumble beneath the enormity of creation? Do I still sense in me the will to go on in a world that moved on long ago?

Dad… where are you… can I change this?

Mom… fuck your soul… but can I change this?

Someone drown the screams within… please… I cannot hear the sphere of humanity anymore. The screams tethers me to a thought beyond measure… There is a curtain of blood before my eyes, oh god, obscuring the world of men from my gaze.

And I'm not part, truly, of the world anymore. I only dream now. We all do, I think, in a way.

And their voices descend in dreams, ravings and utterings of the unknown, of the unseen and the unfound beyond the end of the universe.

Can you save them?

Can you save them all?

Can I save you?

Can I save me?

Can I save us?

Fuck it all, please save us.

My sins bled off the mountains of man, tops aflame and screams abound at the foot of the hill, on the streets – screams of the dying and of the free, for we are all free in the flames.

And what does that say about your reality, huh? Yours! That you're only truly free when you're fighting for your life. Only then does your mind work exclusively in your name, for your existence.

It's a lie. All of it. Only in the face of death, the true equalizer, the bearer of truth, can you see, can you understand, can you become…

Will you save us…?

Will I save me?

I drowned a dream in flames, a world unmade by my hand, and a future unrealized crumpled upon the papers of my imagination. But I stand beyond dreams now – beyond death, it cannot touch me – and I realize…

What a beautiful lie…

I mean… sometimes it kills me to see what life has become… what madness we have allowed ourselves to be submerge in. We spent an entire lifetime looking for a way to justify it – life. We fill ourselves with illusory purpose, so that the sickness of the mind does not descend upon us. So we at least don't notice its arrival.

Some men venture out in search of truth, their truth, hoping that it can save them. Some spent their nights alone in a room, hoping that the nightmares won't take hold… Yet others… the truly lost… sleepwalk through life without much thought of how truly extraordinary and peculiar their reality is.

And some look into the darkness, afraid of it, but too afraid not to… in search of another lost soul to be bound to, with… beyond and in life complete. Of what becomes of it, they are not in control. But that matters little, for it is purpose. Maybe it doesn't matter at all. Not at all. It is love, after all.

It is. Love.

Love.

Can you see? May these words bring you peace.

And then she laughs. A figment of a lost time that resonates across the empty room of my mind. And the rivers of blood part, an ocean of flames spill aside… and I am reborn in her lightness. And I want that laughter to touch me, to be part of me forever. And I see her naked arms, encircling my waist, protecting my goodness… and I want to sweep her into my arms, to hold and to never let go and to always be held in this sensory illusion of lust and love and subtle will of continuation of my blood; I want to touch her and be touched by her.

And I yearn for her gaze, man.

And I yearn for the world to understand. Or for me to understand…

For a buddy in the night, holding me tight and telling me sweet little lies of a better tomorrow as I cry about the wrongs I committed to protect the lie. As I cry in the corner of my room, in my head, atop a skyscraper in a rebuilding city, of which an entire planet's thoughts touch.

Surrounded by millions of people, as I am, I've never felt more alone.

I crave for the lie to take hold anew.

I crave for my illusory impulses, my intoxicating rush of emotion as my heart soars, mad and profound, as I behold a world-

-a girl-

-a moment-

-a miracle…

with love in my heart… and a sense of…

-sheer wonder…

Because even though it might be an illusion, it is the sweetest notion. To watch a man pass by children playing on the street, his lips playing a smile for the world to see if only it would be kind enough to look…

For a woman to touch the shoulder of a teary-eyed stranger, telling him soundlessly that there is still light… that it may not be much light, but…

It beats the darkness…

Every fucking time!

I'm a creature of illusions, a man bound in cynicism in search of hope.

And I am not beyond redemption; not beyond that which time blinds in a holy light.

For I am worthy of the lies, of the love I have in my heart still. I'm bound by purpose. It might be a purpose of my own creation, but man, isn't that what life is truly about? Forging your own destiny? Find a dot upon the cosmos in which you can become – selfishly for unselfishly committing to the apathetic world and finding a way to last above the horrors.

Our awareness has made us cynical.

Our cunning has made us hard and unkind.

Our progress, as a species, has turned life into a roadmap of pain and suffering. We feel far too little and think far too hard. And yet… there is a glimmer of light. And it beats the darkness still. It has to. I hope. Because the truth isn't good enough; we deserve more than that.

There's a virtue in defeat – as long as you fought till the end, fought the silent fight. And, you see, at least that's something that will always sustain you. The willingness to fight and hold, to last above the nightmare. To hope… for a better lie…

And life is a lie. The Lie. There is no way around it, we endure it, we suffer its pain as we search for moments of freedom and small measures of miracles, of realness in the spectrum of the lie. And… Man… when they come by they, so short and so fleeting, they are worth all the piles of shit we swallow to get there…

Oh god… what a beautiful lie it can be.

Leading me back to love. In which lightness I might, by forgotten instincts and unfound will, last above the horrors as I search for my way back amongst the living.